


twenty years old

by lunar_peach



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M, im not sure what to tag this tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 11:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18387614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunar_peach/pseuds/lunar_peach
Summary: basically GoL but its ash (kinda?)





	twenty years old

**Author's Note:**

> im not really sure what this is but its not fun or happy or fluffy so if you're about that this probably isnt for you but if you love hypotheticals and character exploration and pain you're in the right place

The empty feeling in his chest never subsided. 

Not in the hot summer sun, or in the cool waters of Cape Cod, or in the billowing winter winds of the city. The memory played involuntarily when he closed his eyes. When he heard his own name- Max or Alex or anyone else calling out to him. It was like a cruel game, the way he could still see the life drain from those warm brown eyes, like a tide that would never return. 

Everything else fades with time- days together, kisses, words whispered like secrets in the dead of night. He could hardly remember his face. Except for that memory. 

Ash could still feel the snow and the blood at odds with each other as they melted into one on the cement. 

He hadn’t seen either of them coming. Lao from the front, Eiji from the back. Ash was trained to perceive danger. But the letter, the thought of Eiji’s promise to stay with him forever, his love- it had worn his defenses as he always had. It made him let his guard down. 

From the beginning, he knew they’d be the end of one another. 

It was his fault. It was all his fault. 

He’d been walking with his head down. Eiji ran to him- pushed him aside- Lao’s knife meeting his own abdomen instead. He barely registered what happened before he took his gun and pointed it at the spot between Lao’s eyes, shooting without hesitation. The world became crystal clear between hot brimming tears and desolate winds. There was only Eiji in the world. Everything else didn’t matter as much as he did, nothing ever would. 

Everything was lost to him for the most part. All he could remember flagging down a taxi and sitting with Eiji in his arms in the backseat as they drove to the hospital. The pain plucked at the nerve endings in his hands. The fear struck him, tried to kill him. It would have been easier to sit with him, keep quiet. Love him as he slipped through his fingertips. Then follow him into the abyss. 

Death together would be better than death apart. But he couldn’t give up, for both their sakes. 

_”We’ll be there in no time, don’t worry. Just stay with me”_. 

He remembered Eiji, fingers trembling and caked in blood, taking his face into his hands and smiling with the little energy he had left. He remembered the dying warmth… his voice as he whispered, for the last time, _“Don’t cry… don’t cry anymore. N...not for me. I’m right here. Ash… Aslan, I’m right here.”_

His last words, with him forever. The last evidence he had that Eiji had been there, had loved him, cared for him. A gift and a curse. 

Max later told him he’d refused to let Eiji go once they arrived at the hospital. It took five men to pry them apart and three sedative shots to calm him down. He’d rocked in place with him in the back seat of that cab for hours. He’d cried until he was left to dry heave the pain away. 

His body was taken back to Japan, given a proper burial. He’d planned to go, but Ibe and Max asked for his distance. Eiji was laid to rest and mourned by a baby sister and parents who blamed Ash for what happened. 

Before Eiji Ash had thought he had nothing. And in a way, he was happy with that. Being alone in the world meant he had nothing to lose. The emptiness he thought he knew was comforting that way. Then Eiji came along and nothing was ever the same. He didn’t have something to lose- he had someone to live for. His was the face he loved to see after a long day spent clawing his way to safety. It was what drove him there, kept him at sanities bay. But living without Eiji by his side felt worse than anything he’d ever been through. They’d gotten through everything- the corruption, the gunfire, the borders between them- they’d been so close to happiness. It was as if he had lost himself. After Eiji, there was nothing. 

Two years later, Aslan Jade Callenreese was restored to the world on the surface. No more mafia wars. No more guns. Not much more of anything he’d known in the past. Aslan had no plans, no family. He’d run himself as far from others as he could and lived alone, too scared to get close. Too weak to move on. After everything, he was left with nothing once more.

20 years old and with nothing to live for. What a fucking tragedy.

**Author's Note:**

> anyway im so glad banana fish canonically ended with ash and eiji's wedding! lmao imagine if they'd actually killed them off what a world that would be


End file.
